The Never-Open Desert Diner (19 page)

C
laire thought her husband would arrive at Desert Home sometime on Monday. With no way to get my pickup out of the transfer yard and my trailer still loaded, it made sense to just spend the day making the last of my deliveries. Being on 117 and busy might help me keep my mind off knowing that Claire and her husband were together, maybe in a way I couldn't stand to think about. I took on diesel at the truck stop and made it to the diner by six thirty. Walt didn't show himself and I didn't bother to knock.

Instead of walking straight to Claire's house, I veered off the lane and up along the ridge that divided 117 from Desert Home. Both Claire and Walt seemed to have this ability to sense the presence of people without seeing them. I hugged the ridgeline, staying out of sight of the house.

A quarter of a mile away I hunkered down among some desert flowers and waited to see if Claire would come out. It was a silly test. I didn't think of myself as a silly man. Waiting to see if she appeared, even as sore and tired as I was, increased my anticipation of seeing her. I wanted her to feel my presence. From a distance, I wanted to see her small body and dark hair, as I had seen her so many times before. I needed to see her waiting for me.

The longer I waited the more uncomfortable I became. My muscles began to spasm and cramp. Soon I was experiencing a different kind of discomfort. I began to wonder if her husband was already there or if something had happened that prevented her from appearing. The list of the something-wrongs occupied me for another minute or two. Seven o'clock came and went and still she didn't show. The last thing that occurred to me was that I might be wrong about her ability to sense people. She was simply inside, waiting.

I found Claire outside sitting on the porch with her eyes closed, letting the last light of the setting sun dance on her eyelids. I stood quietly and watched her, the smells of the dinner she had prepared making my stomach growl. Still, she didn't move and made no effort to recognize my presence so near to her. Her hair was free and wild on her shoulders, her hands folded peacefully in her lap.

“Claire!” I shouted, and ran up on the porch and grabbed both of her arms in my hands and lifted her out of the chair.

She opened her eyes and laughed. “I win! How long were you going to hide up there on that ridge?”

My knees buckled. I dropped to the porch. I pressed my face into the pleats of her long western skirt. I couldn't speak. For one brief moment I knew what it would be like to lose her. She knew what I was feeling and put her hands to my head without saying anything.

She knelt in front of me and kissed my cheeks, first one and then the other. “So much for games,” she whispered.

We ate on the porch, mostly without speaking, listening to the sounds of evening. The plates we balanced on our laps were tin and heavy, from another century. She had found them in the cupboard along with a few mason jars, two of which we used for water.

Claire spoke again of her mother, of the unrealized plans Bernice had for Desert Home. I listened as she spoke, sometimes referring to herself and her mother as if they were interchangeable. The effect was unsettling. Desert Home was her mother. I wrote off my outburst to fatigue, though the feeling of loss still lingered on inside me. When I glanced at Claire she, too, seemed to be feeling as if we were somehow trespassing on history. What we saw and felt was already strangely past. We touched each other often during the meal, casually, for the reassurance of the physical reality of each other and ourselves.

“Do you suppose Walt would sell it to me?” Claire asked.

“You'd have to ask him,” I said, wanting to tell her that Walt would give it to us. And if there wasn't an us, he would probably give it to her. “It's hard to figure Walt,” I said. “My guess is that he already has given it to you. It's your inheritance from them both. You said you love it here. You've been happier here than anywhere in your life.” I heard myself speaking in the past. I set my half-full plate down on the porch. “I'm so tired, Claire.”

She did the same with her plate and lay with her head in my lap. She pushed off her boots with her toes. “Me, too,” she said. “I've been thinking I don't really need to see Dennis again. I'm not sure I even want to anymore. You and I could go away for a day or two. I'd just leave the cello in the house. I wouldn't even need to leave a note. You were right. Anything I could say to him I've already said a hundred times. All he wants is his cello.”

“Could you do that?” I asked.

“I know you're afraid, Ben. Don't be. You're as much a part of my happiness here as Desert Home.” She raised her lips to mine. “Do you want me to skip seeing Dennis?”

My answer was yes, but I knew if she didn't I might always wonder what might have happened if she had. She might wonder.

“No,” I said, “I don't want you to see him again. What I want doesn't matter. This is between the two of you. Even if you don't want to see him again, you need to put that cello in his hands. You took it to hurt him in the only way you could. You'll know if you no longer love him when you give him the cello. When he takes it he'll know you don't love him. I
am
afraid, Claire. If you don't see him but give him the cello, I'll be afraid forever.”

We left the plates on the porch. She led me through the empty house to the bedroom. The cello and bow leaned against a bare wall. A mattress made up with white sheets and a blue blanket rested on the floor in the center of the room. Beside the mattress was a small night lamp.

She unbuttoned my shirt. “We'll decide in the morning.”

“You'll decide.”

She touched my forehead. “You've got a fever.”

I lay down on the bed and watched as she undressed. When she was naked, she carefully folded our clothes and set them against the other wall. Each movement, no matter how small, meant something to me, as if she were dancing and the dance told a story I could feel but not understand. I was falling asleep with my eyes open. I heard her switch off the lamp.

She brought her body close to mine. “No more interviews tonight,” she whispered.

“I could interview all night,” I said.

“You will, mister. Tomorrow night. And the night after. And the night after that.”

Later I awoke, knowing her warm body was no longer next to mine. I got to my feet and stood in the doorway of the bedroom. She was sitting on the green metal chair in the living room just as I had seen her that first evening. She was playing the cello in the weak light of the waning moon, her bow arm moving slowly. The notes were full and strong and filled the house and passed around and through me, each time leaving a part of themselves behind. Then her cool fingers were on my arms leading me back to bed. She smelled of desert air and fresh rain. I glanced over my shoulder into the living room, and both the green chair and the cello were gone. The starlight reflected off the hardwood floor where they had been.

“I can still hear you playing,” I said.

She stroked my forehead with her fingers. “Oh, Ben,” she said, “I am still playing. I am always playing.” She placed her head on my shoulder and her left hand across my chest. I listened as her breathing slowed and she returned to sleep. I kissed her hair, inhaling all of her that I could hold, and held my breath as I fell asleep.

W
e awoke at dawn. The soft sunlight angled through the bedroom window as if it didn't want to bother us. She was wearing a man's white T-shirt. I didn't recognize the T-shirt, but I recognized the faded oil stain on the left shoulder. The shirt was a gift to her from Walt. It was a thin, threadbare cotton, and it fit her like a silk envelope.

I tried to lift Claire's T-shirt over her head. She resisted. “You can't be serious.”

I assured her I was very serious. “Like a carpenter with two broken legs at the bottom of a beautiful staircase. Maybe I can't climb the stairs, ma'am, but at least let me admire the workmanship.”

She removed the T-shirt. I let my eyelids close as a way of keeping the image of her inside me. She snuggled next to me. I apologized for being so much trouble during the night. We stayed awake and quiet for a long time.

Claire broke the silence. “My advice to you is not to win any more fights with Walt.”

I told her I planned on taking her advice. “If it hurts this much to win,” I said, “I don't want to know what it's like to lose.” I added, “I hope Walt has said all he has to say on the subject.”

“You had me pretty worried last night.” Her voice trembled as she spoke. “You were delirious some of the time. You suddenly got up and stood in the doorway looking into the empty living room. I didn't know what to do. You must have stood there for fifteen minutes. I tried several times to get you back to bed. You wouldn't go. I think you were seeing me play the cello. You had this expression on your face like you were listening to something.”

“I was,” I said. “I remember. I can still see you there. I can still hear you. Though if you asked me, I wouldn't be able to describe what I heard.”

She had her mind on something else. I waited to hear what it was.

“You're right,” she said. “I have to put the cello in Dennis's hands. If I don't, I can't stay here with you and Walt
—
with my mother
—
in Desert Home.”

We lay together for a long time as the room gradually filled with sunlight, and I thought about the cello and her husband on his way. She didn't tell me what she was thinking. She didn't need to. The cello against the wall might have well been Dennis. I wondered why I didn't hate it, all their years together standing there.

We spent the early morning lounging in bed and on the porch without much conversation as we both thought about the coming day. Midmorning Claire and I walked silently hand in hand back along the sandy lane toward the diner, pausing briefly at her mother's grave. She let go of my hand when we reached the end of the lane and put her arms around my waist. The diner shimmered in the heat on the other side of the highway.

“Soon,” she said, “Dennis will have his cello and I'll be here in Desert Home with you and Walt.”

I kissed her and walked across 117 to the diner. The front door was open. I turned to look back at Claire. She was gone.

Walt sat at the counter facing the front door with a cup of coffee in his hands. “How's she holding up?”

“Do me a favor, Walt?”

“What?”

“Punch me again. I'd like to be unconscious today.”

“Funny,” he said, “I was thinking of asking the same favor of you. Except I need to be on guard duty when he shows up. That and I'm not sure you could get the job done.”

I let that comment go, partly because I agreed with it. “You think there's going to be trouble?” I asked.

“Maybe,” he answered. “I don't know him, but I know Claire some. I hope not.” He swiveled the stool around to face the counter. “I noticed she returned the gun I gave her. Probably a good idea.”

I agreed with him. “I need to stay busy today,” I said. “I still have freight in my truck so I'll be out on 117 all day.”

Walt offered to cook me breakfast. I declined, and he acted as if he didn't believe me. “You haven't eaten, have you?” I said I hadn't but I wasn't hungry. “Sure you are. Your body's healing. Bacon and eggs. Toast and butter.” He slipped off the stool and headed for the kitchen. “That will fix you up. I'll have you on the road in twenty minutes.”

I took a seat at the counter and mumbled, “Whatever you say, Dad.”

Walt showed his head in the stainless steel pass-through. He glared at me. “What did you say?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Not a damn thing.”

In less than five minutes he put down a plate of eggs, bacon, and toast. I was hungry. He took the stool to my right and watched me eat, suppressing a grin. Five minutes after that there wasn't a crumb on the plate. Gulping the last out of a mug of coffee, I stood up.

Walt reached up and put his big left paw on my shoulder and firmly pushed me back down on the stool. “Sit down,” he said. “We need to talk.”

When someone says
we need to talk
, what he or she usually means is
you will listen
. Any conversation that takes place will be accidental. I was listening.

Walt cleared his throat. “Just so you know,” he said, “after this husband thing is over, there are going to be some changes.”

I asked him what kind of changes.

“Changes,” he barked. “One in particular.” He made sure he had his eyes on mine and I was prepared for the significance of whatever he had to say. “No more nights in Desert Home until you two are proper.”

I was glad I had already eaten breakfast. It gave me the necessary strength to hold my face together. After a suitable pause, I said, “Yes, sir.”

My answer might have been a little too much for him. He doubted my sincerity. He shouldn't have. I was absolutely sincere. If that was the way Walt felt, Claire could spend nights with me in Price.

“Are you mocking me, Ben?”

“No, sir,” I said. “I hope you'll make this speech of yours to Claire, if you haven't already.”

“I don't need to make it to Claire. I'm telling you. If I see your ragged ass down there late at night or early in the morning, you'll think the other night was your senior prom. You understand?”

I gave Walt another “Yes, sir.” Just to make certain, I said, “By ‘proper' you mean married, right?”

“You know damn well that's what I mean. That's her mother's house. I still own it. No hanky-panky. The people who raised her are gone.”

I had guessed as much.

“She doesn't have anyone except that musician ex-husband.” He said “musician” as if it didn't have a thing to do with music.

As far as I was concerned, the phrase
hanky-panky
was more interesting. It amused me some. I bounced it around in my head for a few seconds. It was as good a term as any and better than most.

“You don't think you're getting too far ahead, do you? What happens if I ask Claire to marry me and she turns me down? Or are you planning on asking her for me? Maybe on account of the hanky-panky you figure on just telling her she has to marry me?”

The idea that Claire might have a different plan was not a possibility Walt had considered. He had no intention of considering it now. “I'm just giving you fair warning,” he said, and clamped his jaw shut. The conversation was over. He picked up my plate from the counter and took the mug from my hand. “Now get to work.”

To my way of thinking, for what it was worth, I figured I now had received Walt's blessing. Twice. He had everything all set in his head, and he was confident everything was now set in mine. If Claire decided, for whatever reason, that marriage to me wasn't what she wanted, I would be to blame. That would be the end of my friendship with Walt forever. It was a risk I was willing to take. He would have it no other way.

The truth was, neither would I
—
the marriage part, not the hanky-panky. Claire would want time, and I wanted her to have it, as much as she needed with or without the hanky-panky, though preferably with. If at any point she said no, or even if she left with Dennis and never returned, a part of her would always remain with me, proper in my heart in the only way it could be. In that I had no choice.

I aimed the truck toward Rockmuse. I repeated “hanky-panky” out loud to myself a couple of times and bet that Walt and Bernice had hanked and panked up a storm, probably before they were married. Maybe not, but I wouldn't have bet on that. Men were often far different in their roles as fathers than they were as suitors, the memories of which kept them, out of necessity, both vigilant and violent, and even tender in moments, to their daughters. I wondered if I might have that chance someday. I hoped so.